ARC Review: When Joss Met Matt

Posted February 23, 2015 / Book Reviews / 2 Comments

I received this book for free (hey, thanks!) in exchange for an honest review. I promise that this does NOT affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. For real.

ARC Review: When Joss Met MattWhen Joss Met Matt by Ellie Cahill
Genres: New Adult
Published by Random House on February 24th 2015
Also by this author: Just a Girl
Format: eARC (352 pages) • Source: Publisher
GoodreadsAmazon Barnes & Noble
four-stars

Content warning: because of its genre and/or because it has older characters than you normally see on my blog, it may contain sex, drinking/drugs, and/or violence.

What if after every bad breakup, there was someone to help "cleanse your palate"--someone who wouldn't judge you, who was great in bed, someone you were sure not to fall in love with? "Sorbet sex" could solve everything--as long as it never got too sweet.

Joss and Matt have been friends since freshman year of college, meeting one night after Joss is dumped by her boyfriend. After a few drinks, Matt humors her with a proposition: that he'll become her go-to guy whenever she needs to heal a broken heart. In return, she'll do the same for him. The #1 Rule: They'll never fall in love with each other. People scoff at the arrangement. But six years later, Joss and Matt are still the best of friends . . . with benefits.

Through a string of boyfriends and girlfriends--some almost perfect, some downright wrong--Joss and Matt are always there for each other when the going gets tough. No strings. No attachments. Piece of cake. No problem. After all, since they wrote the rules, surely they can play by them. Or can they?

1thoughtsAlright I am a big new adult fan lately, but this one definitely lends itself more towards the young adult side. Don’t get too excited about lots of graphic sexytimes, because it’s not gonna happen. This one is purely classified as new adult because of the age range. Now that that’s out of the way, let me tell you how freakin cute this book was.

I love Liz Czukas (here writing as Ellie Cahill) so I requested this one immediately when I saw it. It’s been sitting on my Kindle since October and I finally decided to dive in. I’m so glad I did because February is my big lame Valentines Day contemporary binge month, and this one fit right in. I absolutely loved the way this story was put together. It alternates between present day and some of their experiences during college. You essentially get to travel back in time throughout the various times they’ve called each other for some sorbet sex. It’s a bit unorthodox, though, to learn about all of their other relationships while you’re just kind of anxiously waiting for them to get together. It works for a lot of reasons, but mostly because you get to see how wrong everyone else is for them. It would have been cool to see Matt’s perspective throughout the book, but it definitely would have involved too much switching around (between people and timeframes).

I found myself wishing it was from Matt’s POV a lot of the time because Joss annoyed me. She constantly made stupid decisions! I know that everyone can be dumb in relationships occasionally, but she constantly just made the wrong choice. Every time! I could relate to her and did like her (overall) as a character, but most times I wanted to jump in and strangle her. Aside from that, the banter between her and Matt was just so spot-on. I love my books with a fair share of sass  and sarcasm, especially for the OTP. The constant jokes about a contract and about their assistants faxing things to each other really made me crack up for some reason.

The secondary characters were very limited and changed a bit. It took place over the course of seven years, so it’s not entirely surprising that some friends came and went and were referenced randomly. I’ve seen a lot of reviews where people really liked Nellie as Joss’s friend, but I didn’t like her that much. She came off as just a bit too bitchy for my taste. I appreciated the times she called Joss an idiot, though…

My heart ached for them. I wanted them to get their shit together and BE TOGETHER GODDAMMIT. The whole story made me so happy at the same time. I loved their interactions, their stories, their flashbacks, and their whole relationship. Happy sigh. I will go down with this ship. Overall, I would highly recommend this one for people who are looking for an introduction to the new adult genre. It’s a good mix of more young adult themes and moderate sex scenes, so it won’t overwhelm you with angst and erotica like some new adult books do. I will definitely read anything that Liz Czukas – and Ellie Cahill – puts their name on.

ratings scorecard plot premise  four-half-stars characterss  three-half-stars writing style  five-stars pacing  four-stars feels swoons  four-stars addiction  four-half-stars

2 responses to “ARC Review: When Joss Met Matt

    • I liked Boomerang a lot! It was really funny and didn’t have any of that angst that I find annoying in NA haha. When Joss Met Matt is DEFINITELY a good pick for people who prefer YA, because it’s basically YA with just older characters. I do like the Rusk University series by Cora Carmack, but I didn’t like Losing It – one of her other NA books. So I think she can be hit or miss for some people! The main reason I like Rusk University (All Lined Up, All Broke Down) is because of the football 😉

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